Would you accept a job like that? If you’re in a movie or TV show, you might. Henchmen, or bodyguards, or “gun men”, or “button men” (in gangster movies), have been in movies and television shows for years. Recently, there have also had henchwoman. They were most notable in several James Bond movies and in movies where Schwarzenegger, or Stallone, or Bruce Lee, or Van Damme, or someone like that beats up or kills a lot of them. They’ve also been in superhero movies, westerns, gangster movies, “Lethal Weapon” movies, “Die Hard” movies, “Beverly Hills Cop” movies, “Lord of the Rings” movies, “John Wick” movies, “Indiana Jones” movies, “Taken” movies, “Inception” (where there are even henchmen looking to kill you in dreams) etc., etc. Recently I’ve been seeing them a lot. There were henchmen in the recent movies and television shows I watched including “The Accountant 2”, “Thunderbolts*”, “The Last of Us”, and “Mobland”.
For most movies or TV shows, the first time you see the henchmen, they’re often just standing around with guns looking tough. Later, sometimes there’s a car chase where some henchmen will chase the hero. Sometimes the henchmen are specifically sent to kill someone or some people. If it’s the main hero, they always fail but if it’s a supporting character they sometimes succeed but it takes several henchmen. In the opening scene of the recent “The Accountant 2”, there’s 5 henchmen sent to kill Ray King (J.K. Simmons) – 4 of them are killed. There were several shooters that killed Sonny Corleone (James Caan) in “The Godfather”. Most of the time, the final scene in the movie or TV show is the hero going to the “lair” or “hideout” where the main villain is to stop the villain and/or save the hostage(s). The hero fights several henchmen.
The majority of the scenes with henchmen are a waste of time. The movie just wants to show off some creative fight choreography, or stunts, or car crashes, or unique ways for the henchmen to die, or the star(s) of the movie wants to show off their fighting skills. If there’s a chase scene, the henchmen are usually run off the road or crash into something (often with an explosion). If the henchmen are sent to kill someone (other than the hero), they often end up killed. If the henchmen are shooting, no matter how many bullets they fire (without reloading) they don’t hit anything, but the hero shoots them with 1 or 2 shots. If they’re fighting, the main hero will often fight one at a time (no matter how many henchmen are close to them) and knock them out easily. The one exception is the fight with the “main” henchman which is usually the last fight. That person usually takes longer to knock out or kill.
I’m not talking about people who help steal a lot of money because they’ll eventually get a share of the money. That would be considered a group of thieves with maybe one guy in charge (like some bank robbery movies such as “Ocean 11/12/13”). I’m also not talking about war movies. Those soldiers are defending their country. Henchmen are usually just paid by the villain to protect him. I would consider stormtroopers in the Star Wars movies partly soldiers and partly henchmen. In some movies, there’s even henchmen on the hero’s side. They’re the ones who get injured or killed. If there’s a large group of people with the hero or with the villain, any person who is named in the credits only as “guard #1” or “cop #1”, or “red shirt guy” (in the Star Trek movies and television shows, the extra person in the “red shirt” who often gets killed when they beam down to a planet is a henchman).
The “Despicable Me” movies mocked the idea of henchmen with the “Minions” but that didn’t stop other movies and TV shows from continuing to have them. Henchmen think they can beat the hero (but they can’t), or they’re smarter than the hero (but they’re not), or they get paid a lot of money to fight the hero (but they probably won’t get paid – if they’re still alive at the end), or they would die to protect the villain (for some reason). It’s one of the worst cliches in movies and television shows.
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 